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California Dreamin’

This article appeared in the New York Daily News on
September 10, 2006.

Ever since the Gold Rush, Californians have taken credit for
leading the nation and the world with their dynamic culture and
responsive politics. But that’s hardly the case for their
much-vaunted new law restricting the emissions of carbon dioxide to
1990 levels by the year 2020.

How sooo 1990s. The California Global Warming Solutions Act is a
watered-down version of the 1996 UN Kyoto Protocol, which mandates
that most industrial nations reduce their emissions a tiny bit more
by 2008-2012. Only one or two major nations may meet Kyoto. The
rest failed. California will fail at Kyoto-lite, and New York
shouldn’t follow in its footsteps.

The world will fail Kyoto because the technology to reduce
emissions simply isn’t there or isn’t politically acceptable (i.e.
nuclear power). Californians can’t simply wish it into existence by
driving their SUVs to Big Sur and singing Kumbaya. Their law
requires a 25% reduction in overall emissions while, thanks to all
kinds of immigration, population growth rises rapidly.

The entry-level cars for these entry-level Californians are
going to be quite used, not the $30,000 hybrids that are chariots
of the chi-chi. Thanks to a largely snowless climate, old beaters
last a long time out there, and so will current emissions
trends.

But let’s dream that California does lead the nation and even
the world, and that every nation that has any obligations under
Kyoto magically achieves a California reduction in emissions.
According to scientists from the U.S. National Center for
Atmospheric Research, the amount of warming these reductions would
prevent by the year 2060 is 0.05 degrees Celsius. That’s right,
one-twentieth of a degree. But that nothing will cost
something.

The biggest cost is going to be people’s faith in environmental
policy. California’s law (and some upcoming federal ones) are being
couched in a climate of hysteria. Hurricanes have gotten worse from
global warming, we hear. Greenland’s ice is disappearing. We’re all
going to die unless we do something STAT.

Yet the frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes is the same
today as it was 50 years ago. In fact, Greenland was cooler in its
last decade than it was from 1910 to 1940.

But, thanks to this hysteria-driven policy, people will expect
severe hurricanes to become rare and Greenland to somehow go back
where it wasn’t. That’s simply not going to happen.